Dealers, time to talk about the weather in DDS2! No, not like that, don’t worry. Promise it won’t be boring small talk. For some time now we’ve been polishing the game and we’re done with the mechanics, so we can also share some more visuals with y’all and tell you some more about the existing features.
Here’s what Rafał has to say about it:
The day-night cycle in DDS2 is not only a matter of time flow and realism, but it also holds a direct correlation with the gameplay. The island does not have a nighttime curfew like the ghetto in DDS1, but the daytime and nighttime gameplay differs. Daytime mostly focuses on sales, while the night is great for production, transportation and preparations for the next day. It is also the time that you can break into spots that are unavailable during the day if you prefer obtaining goods in the "less legal" manner.
Gameplay aside, the visuals and lighting of a dynamic open world like this also come with challenges. DDS2 not only has dynamic lighting but also varied weather – it can be cloudy, clear, rainy, stormy or foggy both during the day as well as nighttime. We had to find optimal ways to combine the sun and moonlight, skylight, post-processing and artificial light sources to achieve good visibility both indoors and outdoors at any time. Of course, there are still some times and places when it is really dark, but that's what you have a flashlight for, right? :)
So, now you know for sure that DDS2 has a day-night cycle and dynamic weather conditions. There are several types of weather and the environment reacts accordingly – things get wet when it’s raining, trees sway in the wind and waves form on the bodies of water.
The in-game lighting is a combination of standard light sources, global illumination, post-process and the eye adaptation mechanic. We’re using UE5’s Lumen system, which is a new dynamic Global Illumination and reflection system. It allows for advanced lighting, such as time of day or lighting that reacts to world changes, so exactly something we needed in DDS2.
There is a gameplay distinction between night and day, too. Our clients will write to us and our hired dealers during the day, and that’s also when we can schedule deliveries and make sales. During the night you will encounter more thugs on the streets but it’s also easier to sneak and hide.
Night has also one more perk – when people go to sleep, you get the opportunity to break into warehouses where you can find many valuable and/or useful items. That is if you want to go that route 👀
And as a treat here you have a screenshot with a lightning strike. It took us several tries to capture it!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1708850/Drug_Dealer_Simulator_2/